Thursday, June 08, 2006

I recently read a bon mot, which said:“You sometimes have to run to stay in the same position”.I have caught on a new ludicrous habit. Waking up at 5.00 AM in the morning for jogging!!!

I call it crazy because until a few days back 5.00 AM was still midnight for me, but jogging at 6.00 AM would be like moving in a fish market with a bevy of people all around.

I hate it when people overtake me (which rarely happens! :)). But the other day there was this guy who sped past me and then maintained a constant distance. I wanted to overtake him without compromising on my speed and getting tired.

That’s when I realized how true the above remark was. In order to keep up with this guy I had to keep running but the relative position between us was the same!!!. Now if I didn’t want to increase my speed then the only other option was to wait. Exactly after about 5 rounds around the park this guy started loosing speed. Then it was a cakewalk.

This made me realize how this analogy can be applied to almost everything in this world. We start every task with full josh but as the days go on we tend to become indolent and slow down and that’s when others overtake us. The best possible virtues we can have are patience and persistence and go full throttle in the end!!!

PS: The sheer number of people, who flock the parks these days, shows that more and more people are getting health conscious. Though some tend to give more exercise to their mouth rather than their body :).

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Have you been in a situation where you know things might not work out in spite of you giving your best shot, but still you don’t want to give up? Where you keep on trying for that elusive thing which you thought you wanted / deserved?I have been in such situations and its always painful because you really feel so strong about it that you want to try again and again!!! That’s why its important for us to learn when to give up!

“Try and try again, till you succeed” is an adage that we have heard a zillion times but its important for us to learn when to quit too…“Don't beat a dead horse” is an aphorism that supports my argument. This is more like a sequel to my previous post, which emphasized exactly the opposite of what I am trying to tell here…

For everything there is something called a threshold, a limit that one has to cross to give up on things that seem very important to us… So we continue till we cross that limit. This term “limit” is associated to a stage where we stop feeling bad about quitting or to a stage where we no longer care…You reach a point where the pain associated with the repeated failures is so high that it has to be alleviated and there is no other go. When and how we cross this limit depends on the situation and the people involved.What is the use in going for something that gives you more pain than joy? We all live on hopes but that doesn’t mean we have to have unrealistic goals or goals that no longer are relevant or achievable…During the course of time it will become one of those nugatory issues.

When do we call it quits? We are the best judges for it. One fine day we just have to put an end to the introspection and carry on. Given a situation we are the ones who have to decide that enough is enough!!!